Flowers - testing new flash

[Dixie]

Flowers are nice to shoot and you can tell your wife that you bought them just for her. :D

Camera - Canon 10D
Flash - Canon MT-24EX
Lens - Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
Settings - 135mm, 1/100 second, f/36 for both shots

http://dixie.smugmug.com/photos/31996970-L.jpg

http://dixie.smugmug.com/photos/32001455-L.jpg

[Dixie]

Finished going through all of them. Adding two more.

http://dixie.smugmug.com/photos/32017078-M.jpg

http://dixie.smugmug.com/photos/32014830-M.jpg

[Harryb]

Looks like the falsh did pretty good there. The subjects are well lit and not blown out.

[Dixie]

Thanks, Harry. I had a couple in the series that were underexposed, but none that really went the other way. I went manual with all the camera settings and E-TTL with the flash and they worked well together.

[wxwax]

Interesting, thanks for posting these, Dixie. I wonder what it would look like with a warming filter on the flash?

[ginger_55]

Dixie, interesting that you were testing a new flash. I bought a Sigma Super, the limit of my finances, for this trip. Have had more problems with using it. Probably my fault, have no idea.

I can't type well enough on this keyboard to write long, but I hAVE many blurred, photos with "movement", etc. And some spot on.

AND, my on camera flash will no longer work, so I couldn't resort to that. It won't pop up. Don't know the sigma users, so I guess I will have to call Sigma re flash, but I don't even know what to ask them. Will definitely have to call Canon re pop up flash. This flash is the ETTL 2 dedicated to the Canon, was on AV (bad choice for situation) and the shutter priority one.

I had just gotten it on Wed, left for trip on Thurs evening. Did not really test it, was busy. Thought it would work, but if I had taken a photo of say a flower, it might have worked???? This problem was a some time thing. And it appeared to work fine when I first tested it here at Julie's.

I did get the photos I needed, but I am disappointed in the flash in general, got it at Amazon. I can't afford the Canon, at this pt, wish I could.

Love your flowers.

ginger (took photos of horses while other family women did a pottery thing. I am not into pottery things. I was so excited to see the horses!) Also took lots of avail light photos of "my" women doing pottery. A first grader all the way up to my ex husband's current wife: my age (65)

no birds, not a single one, a yellow one was at julie's feeder, but flew away post haste

[Dixie]

Interesting, thanks for posting these, Dixie. I wonder what it would look like with a warming filter on the flash?
PS CS2 photo filters - 85 warming @ 70% density

[Dixie]

.....but I hAVE many blurred, photos with "movement", etc. And some spot on.


Love your flowers.

Ginger, I have found that I have terrible results when trying to go Av using a flash. I will sometimes go Tv or P. Where I have found my best results is to go manual on the camera and E-TTL on the flash. That way I can control both the DOF and blur. I know that the flash should "freeze" the action, but like you I have had blurred flash photos - especially when using flash as a fill.

When I go manual on the camera and E-TTL on the flash, I have found that I have the most control and get the greatest number of acceptable shots. I shot some of the flowers from 1/100-1/200 sec with aperture settings ranging from f/9-f/36 using the EF 28-135mm IS USM. Since I was using an on-camera flash and shooting with the camera on manual, I just adjusted the shutter or aperture based on whether I moved closer or farther away from the flower and basically forced the flash to fire at or close to maximum power and then used the histogram to check the exposure. I found this faster and more accurate than trying to meter using my flash meter. Plus, if you are shooting macro/close-up, the flash to subject distance is so short that it makes it very difficult to get good flash meter readings anyway.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the kind comment about the flower shots.

[BigAl]

Great shots :thumb. I especially like the first two.

Ginger: As Dixie said, Av is not a good mode to use for E-TTL flash work (Try this site (http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/) for more info. A lot of words, but good info). I often use P-mode with excellent results. Brian Valentine (Lord Vetinari) uses this flash and I'm sure you've seen his results, so don't write the flash off too soon.

regards
alan

[ian408]

Dixie, these are great. Nice even lighting. Can you rotate the flash heads
around the ring or are they fixed?

Ian

[Dixie]

Ian, you can rotate the mount that holds the twin heads around the lens attachment ring, rotate each head independently in relationship to one another around the mount itself, and you can adjust the angle of each head as well. Additionally, you have full control over the flash ratio between the two heads as well as any single or mulitiple 580EX, 550EX, and 420EX flashes using the slave mode. The manual says that it will only work using the 550EX as a slave, but I tested the 420EX flashes with it and they are controlled as well.